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Transportation has been the focus, due to Tesla’s rise, but houses and commercial buildings are next

When Tesla was still just an oddball upstart, there was plenty of skepticism that they would survive, let alone change the industry and define sustainable transportation and the future of EVs. This was before Tesla’s stock price soared, even as the climate crisis has become more serious.

Although the stock market is as irrational as ever, on another level the massive rise in market cap for the once underdog sustainable energy focused company can also be seen as a vote from the general public – a vote for the transition away from fossil fuels and toward a sustainable energy future..

Fast forward to 2022 and there is an entirely different situation in the automotive and transportation industries. The entire industry is shifting, rapidly, to 100% electric vehicle production and competing for the climate conscious upwardly mobile customer base that was first identified by Tesla’s “S3XY” marketing methods and designs.

Another underdog – Passive House is ready for the next wave of climate conscious changes

Although sustainable transportation infrastructure still has a long way to go and many issues to overcome, the speed of the transition over the last decade is, nevertheless, impressive.

The next phase of the transition toward sustainable energy infrastructure as a whole, however, is clearly going to be energy generation, solar, wind, geothermal and beyond. This will include design and construction of dwellings and commercial real estate with an eye toward efficient ways to decrease the carbon footprint and create structures that have a low carbon cost (embodied carbon and green cement, use of natural materials, etc.).

Passive house, a concept first pioneered in Germany, is at the center of the coming design revolution in architecture and sustainable construction. Andreas Benzing, of A.M.Benzing Architects PLLC has been at the forefront of the New York, NY movement (as executive director of NY Passive House) as it has grown for nearly two decades and is now ready to break out.

Emphasizing the active role that passive house can play in reaching ‘peak performance’ for dwellings and commercial structures, Benzing elucidates his credo and underscores the similarities to Tesla’s higher-end approach to EV’s, now poised to spearhead a similar revolution in architecture; “We strive to better user experience and comfort, engineer to easily achieve peak performance, and maximize the durability of quality materials.”

The books below are a few that show the history and concepts behind passive house from various perspectives. Houses and buildings that have a reduced carbon footprint, while at the same time generate energy from sustainable sources are becoming feasible and all have as a foundation the passive house standard for highly efficient design.

The New Net Zero

The new threshold for green building is not just low energy, it’s net-zero energy. In The New Net Zero, sustainable architect Bill Maclay charts the path for designers and builders interested in exploring green design’s new frontier net-zero-energy structures that produce as much energy as they consume and are carbon neutral.

In a nation where traditional buildings use roughly 40 percent of the total fossil energy, the interest in net-zero building is growing enormously-among both designers interested in addressing climate change and consumers interested in energy efficiency and long-term savings. Maclay, an award-winning net-zero designer whose buildings have achieved high-performance goals at affordable costs, makes the case for a net-zero future; explains net-zero building metrics, integrated design practices, and renewable energy options; and shares his lessons learned on net-zero teambuilding.

Designers and builders will find a wealth of state-of-the-art information on such considerations as air, water, and vapor barriers; embodied energy; residential and commercial net-zero standards; monitoring and commissioning; insulation options; costs; and more.

The comprehensive overview is accompanied by several case studies, which include institutional buildings, commercial projects, and residences. Both new-building and renovation projects are covered in detail.

The New Net Zero is geared toward professionals exploring net-zero design, but also suitable for nonprofessionals seeking ideas and strategies on net-zero options that are beautiful and renewably powered.

Passive House Details

Passive House Details introduces the concepts, principles, and design processes of building ultralow-energy buildings. The objective of this book is to provide design goals, research, analysis, systems, details, and inspiring images of some of the most energy-efficient, carbon-neutral, healthy, and satisfying buildings currently built in the region. Other topics included: heat transfer, moisture management, performance targets, and climatic zones. Illustrated with more than 375 color images, the book is a visual catalog of construction details, materials, and systems drawn from projects contributed from forty firms. Fourteen in-depth case studies demonstrate the most energy-efficient systems for foundations, walls, floors, roofs, windows, doors, and more.

The Greenest Home

Passive is the new green. Passive Houses–well insulated, virtually airtight buildings–can decrease home heating consumption by an astounding 90 percent, making them not only an attractive choice for prospective homeowners, but also the right choice for a sustainable future. The Greenest Home showcases eighteen of the world’s most attractive Passive Houses by forward-thinking architects such as Bernheimer Architecture, Olson Kundig Architects, and Onion Flats, among many others. Each case study consists of a detailed project description, plans, and photographs. An appendix lists helpful technical information. Including a mix of new construction and retrofit projects built in a variety of site conditions, The Greenest Home is an inspiring sourcebook for architects and prospective homeowners, as well as a useful tool for students, and builders alike.

The Solar House

Passive solar heating and passive cooling–approaches known as natural conditioning–provide comfort throughout the year by reducing, or eliminating, the need for fossil fuel. Yet while heat from sunlight and ventilation from breezes is free for the taking, few modern architects or builders really understand the principles involved.

Now Dan Chiras, author of the popular book The Natural House, brings those principles up to date for a new generation of solar enthusiasts.

The techniques required to heat and cool a building passively have been used for thousands of years. Early societies such as the Native American Anasazis and the ancient Greeks perfected designs that effectively exploited these natural processes. The Greeks considered anyone who didn’t use passive solar to heat a home to be a barbarian

In the United States, passive solar architecture experienced a major resurgence of interest in the 1970s in response to crippling oil embargoes. With grand enthusiasm but with scant knowledge (and sometimes little common sense), architects and builders created a wide variety of solar homes. Some worked pretty well, but looked more like laboratories than houses. Others performed poorly, overheating in the summer because of excessive or misplaced windows and skylights, and growing chilly in the colder months because of insufficient thermal mass and insulation and poor siting.

In The Solar House, Dan Chiras sets the record straight on the vast potential for passive heating and cooling. Acknowledging the good intentions of misguided solar designers in the past, he highlights certain egregious–and entirely avoidable–errors. More importantly, Chiras explains in methodical detail how today’s home builders can succeed with solar designs.

Now that energy efficiency measures including higher levels of insulation and multi-layered glazing have become standard, it is easier than ever before to create a comfortable and affordable passive solar house that will provide year-round comfort in any climate.

Moreover, since modern building materials and airtight construction methods sometimes result in air-quality and even toxicity problems, Chiras explains state-of-the-art ventilation and filtering techniques that complement the ancient solar strategies of thermal mass and daylighting. Chiras also explains the new diagnostic aids available in printed worksheet or software formats, allowing readers to generate their own design schemes.

The Passivhaus Designer’s Manual

Passivhaus is the fastest growing energy performance standard in the world, with almost 50,000 buildings realised to date. Applicable to both domestic and non-domestic building types, the strength of Passivhaus lies in the simplicity of the concept. As European and global energy directives move ever closer towards Zero (fossil) Energy standards, Passivhaus provides a robust ‘fabric first’ approach from which to make the next step.

The Passivhaus Designers Manual is the most comprehensive technical guide available to those wishing to design and build Passivhaus and Zero Energy Buildings. As a technical reference for architects, engineers and construction professionals The Passivhaus Designers Manual provides:

State of the art guidance for anyone designing or working on a Passivhaus project;
In depth information on building services, including high performance ventilation systems and ultra-low energy heating and cooling systems;
Holistic design guidance encompassing: daylight design, ecological materials, thermal comfort, indoor air quality and economics;
Practical advice on procurement methods, project management and quality assurance;
Renewable energy systems suitable for Passivhaus and Zero Energy Buildings;
Practical case studies from the UK, USA, and Germany amongst others;
Detailed worked examples to show you how it’s done and what to look out for;
Expert advice from 20 world renowned Passivhaus designers, architects, building physicists and engineers.

Lavishly illustrated with nearly 200 full colour illustrations, and presented by two highly experienced specialists, this is your one-stop shop for comprehensive practical information on Passivhaus and Zero Energy buildings.

The New Net Zero

Passive House Details

The Greenest Home

The Solar House

The Passivhaus Designer’s Manual

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Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, Observation

The Real Dream of Clean Energy: Video Eureka Moment from Cleo Abram

Video September 23, 2022 Danny Leeds

Reducing fossil fuel use is important, but it’s more important to increase zero carbon energy production

Increasing sustainable energy production is possibly the most important goal for the world today. This idea is mostly couched, however, in negative terms, the idea that without a shift to clean, green sustainable sources climate change will destroy the future.

This is an important and essentially true statement.

However the automatic association of sustainable energy as being inevitably connected to less energy availability is a false premise. One that can be proven wrong with positive action towards building clean energy infrastructure, not as a defensive, desperate survival goal, but as a natural expansion of more energy and power that could lead to increased prosperity for the human race.

Deeply embedded thought patterns prevent us, perhaps, from imagining a world where more energy is not associated with more pollution, eventual depletion of a finite and limited resource and ultimately death, destruction and a CO2 induced climate catastrophe.

Optimism and abundance are linked with hope and a dream of a better standard of living for all. That dream is possible not with less energy use, but rather, more and cheaper energy availability that can be created by building a global, sustainable, renewable energy infrastructure.

A change in thought and perspective is necessary and could be more powerful than the sun

Utopia is a word that will get you laughed at, while oblivion is becoming the expected outcome of our century. Predicted by R. Buckminster Fuller in his book ‘Utopia or Oblivion‘, the choice we face in this century is not oblivion and catastrophic suffering or ‘business as usual’, it is not survival vs extinction, it is survival by unleashing utopian potential or total annihilation.

The paradox of sustainable energy is that, without it becoming the primary energy production system for the planet, combined with reduced consumption of fossil fuels until 100% sustainability is reached, oblivion or at least massive pain is assured; while at the same time, achieving 100% carbon free, clean energy from sustainable sources like solar, wind and geothermal, can create virtually unlimited increases in beneficial uses of energy, leading to an almost utopian potential for quality of life.

Thinking is the Difference Between Utopia or Oblivion

The clarity of realizing that clean sustainable energy ubiquity means unlimited energy consumption is non-destructive, and can end the malthusian nightmare of finite resources, that so many have fought over and even died for, is truly mind altering.

More is less, is another way to say it. Or at least more consumption and benefits, but none of the negative costs to the environment that we have come to see as inextricably linked to fossil fuel energy production and use.

At the same time it also harkens back to Elon Musk and Tesla’s mission statement. Tesla has had a vision for sustainable energy that is S3XY; more luxury, more beauty, more fun.

That mind-set, a mind set of abundant clean unlimited energy from sustainable sources, used to power beautiful powerful EVs, has made the company the enormous success that it is and ushered in an era EV production as job #1 throughout the entire auto industry.

The genius of this perspective centers on the idea that humans, when striving toward a positive goal, are always more powerful and successful than they are when simply trying to avoid a negative outcome.

Interestingly, the dream of reaching Mars, Musk’s other stated goal, is both positive and negative, since one reason for the urgent need to establish colonies there could be the destruction of earth due to climate disaster, caused by a failure to create a sustainable clean energy infrastructure in time.

It is the power and dream of much more abundant energy that can remove the idea from our minds that energy consumption is inherently bad, just because it does have negative ramifications galore when the source for that energy is dirty fossil fuels.

The Utopian Mindset must begin to permeate our consciousness if we are to overcome the challenges of 2000-2050 and beyond

Energy abundance is not the only type of abundance that our minds must learn to accept as possible for our species if we hope to turn things around. Bitcoin, for example, is currently being scapegoated in the media generally and is having endless disinformation hurled at its proof of work mining system based on the premise that it uses “too much” energy and too much of that energy is sourced from fossil fuels at this time.

But why not focus on the real problem? Why not see that a monumental and heroic effort to rid the world of dependence on “bad” and ultimately finite and limited sources of energy from fossil fuels and shift, ultimately, 100% of production to clean and renewable sources, needs to be job #1 for team earth?

Again, in an all-or-nothing scenario there is no option to equivocate. The negative reasons that fossil fuels must be phased out as soon as possible (‘the stick’ as per Cleo Abram in her video below) become more inevitable each minute and are already threatening everything humans have accomplished to date.

The positive motivation is less obvious for most at this point (‘the carrot’) and yet is ultimately more powerful (S3XY!) since it carries with it the hope that we can not only avert disaster, death and destruction, but can build a clean, abundant and infinitely expandable energy supply that could be used to build the first tentative steps toward a utopian dream.

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Earth Day, Sustainable Energy

A ‘100% renewables’ target might not mean what you think it means. An energy expert explains

April 23, 2022 Creative Commons

In the global effort to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, achieving a “100% renewables” electricity system is considered ideal.

Some Australian states have committed to 100% renewable energy targets, or even 200% renewable energy targets. But this doesn’t mean their electricity is, or will be, emissions free.

Electricity is responsible for a third of Australia’s emissions, and making it cleaner is a key way to reduce emissions in other sectors that rely on it, such as transport.

So it’s important we have clarity about where our electricity comes from, and how emissions-intensive it is. Let’s look at what 100% renewables actually implies in detail.

Is 100% renewables realistic?

Achieving 100% renewables is one way of eliminating emissions from the electricity sector.

It’s commonly interpreted to mean all electricity must be generated from renewable sources. These sources usually include solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal, and exclude nuclear energy and fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage.

But this is a very difficult feat for individual states and territories to try to achieve.

The term “net 100% renewables” more accurately describes what some jurisdictions — such as South Australia and the ACT — are targeting, whether or not they’ve explicitly said so.

These targets don’t require that all electricity people use within the jurisdiction come from renewable sources. Some might come from coal or gas-fired generation, but the government offsets this amount by making or buying an equivalent amount of renewable electricity.

A net 100% renewables target allows a state to spruik its green credentials without needing to worry about the reliability implications of being totally self-reliant on renewable power.

So how does ‘net’ 100% renewables work?

All east coast states are connected to the National Electricity Market (NEM) — a system that allows electricity to be generated, used and shared across borders. This means individual states can achieve “net 100% renewables” without the renewable generation needing to occur when or where the electricity is required.

Take the ACT, for example, which has used net 100% renewable electricity since October 2019.

The ACT government buys renewable energy from generators outside the territory, which is then mostly used in other states, such as Victoria and South Australia. Meanwhile, people living in ACT rely on power from NSW that’s not emissions-free, because it largely comes from coal-fired power stations.

This way, the ACT government can claim net 100% renewables because it’s offsetting the non-renewable energy its residents use with the clean energy it’s paid for elsewhere.

SA’s target is to reach net 100% renewables by the 2030s. Unlike the ACT, it plans to generate renewable electricity locally, equal to 100% of its annual demand.

At times, such as especially sunny days, some of that electricity will be exported to other states. At other times, such as when the wind drops off, SA may need to rely on electricity imports from other states, which probably won’t come from all-renewable sources.

So what happens if all states commit to net 100% renewable energy targets? Then, the National Electricity Market will have a de-facto 100% renewable energy target — no “net”.

That’s because the market is one entire system, so its only options are “100% renewables” (implying zero emissions), or “less than 100% renewables”. The “net” factor doesn’t come into it, because there’s no other part of the grid for it to buy from or sell to.

How do you get to “200% renewables”, or more?

It’s mathematically impossible for more than 100% of the electricity used in the NEM to come from renewable sources: 100% is the limit.

Any target of more than 100% renewables is a different calculation. The target is no longer a measure of renewable generation versus all generation, but renewable generation versus today’s demand.

Australia could generate several times more renewable energy than there is demand today, but still use a small and declining amount of fossil fuels during rare weather events. Shutterstock

Tasmania, for example, has legislated a target of 200% renewable energy by 2040. This means it wants to produce twice as much renewable electricity as it consumes today.

But this doesn’t necessarily imply all electricity consumed in Tasmania will be renewable. For example, it may continue to import some non-renewable power from Victoria at times, such as during droughts when Tasmania’s hydro dams are constrained. It may even need to burn a small amount of gas as a backup.

This means the 200% renewable energy target is really a “net 200% renewables” target.

Meanwhile, the Greens are campaigning for 700% renewables. This, too, is based on today’s electricity demand.

In the future, demand could be much higher due to electrifying our transport, switching appliances from gas to electricity, and potentially exporting energy-intensive, renewable commodities such as green hydrogen or ammonia.

Targeting net-zero emissions

These “more than 100% renewables” targets set by individual jurisdictions don’t necessarily imply all electricity Australians use will be emissions free.

It’s possible — and potentially more economical — that we would meet almost all of this additional future demand with renewable energy, but keep some gas or diesel capacity as a low-cost backstop.

This would ensure continued electricity supply during rare, sustained periods of low wind, low sun, and high demand, such as during a cloudy, windless week in winter.

The energy transition is harder near the end — each percentage point between 90% and 100% renewables is more expensive to achieve than the previous.

That’s why, in a recent report from the Grattan Institute, we recommended governments pursue net-zero emissions in the electricity sector first, rather than setting 100% renewables targets today.

For example, buying carbon credits to offset the small amount of emissions produced in a 90% renewable NEM is likely to be cheaper in the medium term than building enough energy storage — such as batteries or pumped hydro dams — to backup wind and solar at all times.

The bottom line is governments and companies must say what they mean and mean what they say when announcing targets. It’s the responsibility of media and pundits to take care when interpreting them.

This article is by James Ha, Associate, Grattan Institute and republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Climate Solutions, Earth Day, Social Media

Social Media Giants’ Climate Misinformation Policies Leave Users ‘In the Dark’: Report

April 22, 2022 Creative Commons

“Despite half of U.S. and U.K. adults getting their news from social media, social media companies have not taken the steps necessary to fight industry-backed deception,” reads the report.

Weeks after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified disinformation as a key driver of the planetary crisis, three advocacy groups published a report Wednesday ranking social media companies on their efforts to ensure users can get accurate data about the climate on their platforms—and found that major companies like Twitter and Facebook are failing to combat misinformation.

The report, titled In the Dark: How Social Media Companies’ Climate Disinformation Problem is Hidden from the Public and released by Friends of the Earth (FOE), Greenpeace, and online activist network Avaaz, detailed whether the companies have met 27 different benchmarks to stop the spread of anti-science misinformation and ensure transparency about how inaccurate data is analyzed.

“Despite half of U.S. and U.K. adults getting their news from social media, social media companies have not taken the steps necessary to fight industry-backed deception,” reads the report. “In fact, they continue to allow these climate lies to pollute users’ feeds.

⚠️NEW RESEARCH: Fossil fuel industry-backed climate disinformation pollutes our social media feeds and fans the flames of the #ClimateCrisis. This is why tech companies must take responsibility and stop leaving the public in the dark! https://t.co/7h0rI2jAKW pic.twitter.com/rYEtNETJrY
— Avaaz (@Avaaz) April 21, 2022

The groups assessed five major social media platforms—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and TikTok—and found that the two best-performing companies, Pinterest and YouTube, scored 14 out of the 27 possible points.

As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, Pinterest has won praise from groups including FOE for establishing “clearly defined guidelines against false or misleading climate change information, including conspiracy theories, across content and ads.”

“One of the key objectives of this report is to allow for fact-based deliberation, discussion, and debate to flourish in an information ecosystem that is healthy and fair, and that allows both citizens and policymakers to make decisions based on the best available data.”

The company also garnered points in Wednesday’s report for being the only major social media platform to make clear the average time or views it allows for a piece of scientifically inaccurate content before it will take action to combat the misinformation and including “omission or cherry-picking” of data in its definition of mis- or disinformation.

Pinterest and YouTube were the only companies that won points for consulting with climate scientists to develop a climate mis- and disinformation policy.

The top-performing companies, however, joined the other firms in failing to articulate exactly how their misinformation policy is enforced and to detail how climate misinformation is prioritized for fact-checking.

“Social media companies are largely leaving the public in the dark about their efforts to combat the problem,” the report reads. “There is a gross lack of transparency, as these companies conceal much of the data about the prevalence of digital climate dis/misinformation and any internal measures taken to address its spread.”

Twitter was the worst-performing company, meeting only five of the 27 criteria.

“Twitter is not clear about how content is verified as dis/misinformation, nor explicit about engaging with climate experts to review dis/misinformation policies or flagged content,” reads the report. “Twitter’s total lack of reference to climate dis/misinformation, both in their policies and throughout their enforcement reports, earned them no points in either category.”

TikTok scored seven points, while Facebook garnered nine.

The report, using criteria developed by the Climate Disinformation Coalition, was released three weeks after NPR reported that inaccurate information about renewable energy sources has been disseminated widely in Facebook groups, and the spread has been linked to slowing progress on or shutting down local projects.

In rural Ohio, posts in two anti-wind power Facebook groups spread misinformation about wind turbines causing birth defects in horses, failing to reduce carbon emissions, and causing so-called “wind turbine syndrome” from low-frequency sounds—a supposed ailment that is not backed by scientific evidence. The posts increased “perceptions of human health and public safety risks related to wind” power, according to a study published last October in the journal Energy Research & Social Science.

As those false perceptions spread through the local community, NPRreported, the Ohio Power Siting Board rejected a wind farm proposal “citing geological concerns and the local opposition.”

Misinformation on social media “can really slow down the clean energy transition, and that has just as dire life and death consequences, not just in terms of climate change, but also in terms of air pollution, which overwhelmingly hits communities of color,” University of California, Santa Barbara professor Leah Stokes told NPR.

As the IPCC reported in its February report, “rhetoric and misinformation on climate change and the deliberate undermining of science have contributed to misperceptions of the scientific consensus, uncertainty, disregarded risk and urgency, and dissent.”

Wednesday’s report called on all social media companies to:

Establish, disclose, and enforce policies to reduce climate change dis- and misinformation;
Release in full the company’s current labeling, fact-checking, policy review, and algorithmic ranking systems related to climate change disinformation policies;
Disclose weekly reports on the scale and prevalence of climate change dis- and misinformation on the platform and mitigation efforts taken internally; and
Adopt privacy and data protection policies to protect individuals and communities who may be climate dis/misinformation targets.

“We see a clear boundary between freedom of speech and freedom of reach,” it continues, “and believe that transparency on climate dis/misinformation and accountability for the actors who spread it is a precondition for a robust and constructive debate on climate change and the response to the climate crisis.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by JULIA CONLEY and republished

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Health and Diet, Lifestyle

Cannabis: how it affects our cognition and psychology – new research

April 13, 2022 Creative Commons

Cannabis has been used by humans for thousands of years and is one of the most popular drugs today. With effects such as feelings of joy and relaxation, it is also legal to prescribe or take in several countries.

But how does using the drug affect the mind? In three recent studies, published in The Journal of Psychopharmacology, Neuropsychopharmacology and the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, we show that it can influence a number of cognitive and psychological processes.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that, in 2018, approximately 192 million people worldwide aged between 15 and 64 used cannabis recreationally. Young adults are particularly keen, with 35% of people between the ages of 18 and 25 using it, while only 10% of people over the age of 26 do.

This indicates that the main users are adolescents and young adults, whose brains are still in development. They may therefore be particularly vulnerable to the effects of cannabis use on the brain in the longer term.

Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main psychoactive compound in cannabis. It acts on the brain’s “endocannabinoid system”, which are receptors which respond to the chemical components of cannabis. The cannabis receptors are densely populated in prefrontal and limbic areas in the brain, which are involved in reward and motivation. They regulate signalling of the brain chemicals dopamine, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate.

We know that dopamine is involved in motivation, reward and learning. GABA and glutamate play a part in cognitive processes, including learning and memory.

Cognitive effects

Cannabis use can affect cognition, especially in those with cannabis-use disorder. This is characterised by the persistent desire to use the drug and disruption to daily activities, such as work or education. It has been estimated that approximately 10% of cannabis users meet the diagnostic criteria for this disorder.

In our research, we tested the cognition of 39 people with the disorder (asked to be clean on the day of testing), and compared it with that of 20 people who never or rarely used cannabis. We showed that participants with the condition had significantly worse performance on memory tests from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) compared to the controls, who had either never or very rarely used cannabis. It also negatively affected their “executive functions”, which are mental processes including flexible thinking.

This effect seemed to be linked to the age at which people started taking the drug – the younger they were, the more impaired their executive functioning was.

Cognitive impairments have been noted in mild cannabis users as well. Such users tend to make riskier decisions than others and have more problems with planning.

Although most studies have been conducted in males, there has been evidence of sex differences in the effects of cannabis use on cognition. We showed that, while male cannabis users had poorer memory for visually recognising things, female users had more problems with attention and executive functions. These sex effects persisted when controlling for age; IQ; alcohol and nicotine use; mood and anxiety symptoms; emotional stability; and impulsive behaviour.

Reward, motivation and mental health

Cannabis use can also affect how we feel – thereby further influencing our thinking. For example, some previous research has suggested that reward and motivation – along with the brain circuits involved in these processes – can be disrupted when we use cannabis. This may affect our performance at school or work as it can make us feel less motivated to work hard, and less rewarded when we do well.

In our recent study, we used a brain imaging task, in which participants were placed in a scanner and viewed orange or blue squares. The orange squares would lead to a monetary reward, after a delay, if the participant made a response. This set up helped us investigate how the brain responds to rewards.

We focused particularly on the ventral striatum, which is a key region in the brain’s reward system. We found that the effects on the reward system in the brain were subtle, with no direct effects of cannabis in the ventral striatum. However, the participants in our study were moderate cannabis users. The effects may be more pronounced in cannabis users with more severe and chronic use, as seen in cannabis use disorder.

There is also evidence that cannabis can lead to mental health problems. We have shown that it is related to higher “anhedonia” – an inability to feel pleasure – in adolescents. Interestingly, this effect was particularly pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

Cannabis use during adolescence has also been reported as a risk factor for developing psychotic experiences as well as schizophrenia. One study showed that cannabis use moderately increases the risk of psychotic symptoms in young people, but that it has a much stronger effect in those with a predisposition for psychosis (scoring highly on a symptom checklist of paranoid ideas and psychoticism).

Assessing 2,437 adolescents and young adults (14-24 years), the authors reported a six percentage points increased risk – from 15% to 21% – of psychotic symptoms in cannabis users without a predisposition for psychosis. But there was a 26-point increase in risk – from 25% to 51% – of psychotic symptoms in cannabis users with a predisposition for psychosis.

We don’t really know why cannabis is linked to psychotic episodes, but hypotheses suggests dopamine and glutamate may be important in the neurobiology of these conditions.

Another study of 780 teenagers suggested that the association between cannabis use and psychotic experiences was also linked to a brain region called the “uncus”. This lies within the parahippocampus (involved in memory) and olfactory bulb (involved in processing smells), and has a large amount of cannabinoid receptors. It has also previously been associated with schizophrenia and psychotic experiences.

Cognitive and psychological effects of cannabis use are ultimately likely to depend to some extent on dosage (frequency, duration and strength), sex, genetic vulnerabilities and age of onset. But we need to determine whether these effects are temporary or permanent. One article summarising many studies has suggested that with mild cannabis use, the effects may weaken after periods of abstinence.

But even if that’s the case, it is clearly worth considering the effects that prolonged cannabis use can have on our minds – particularly for young people whose brains are still developing.

Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology, University of Cambridge; Christelle Langley, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Cambridge; Martine Skumlien, PhD Candidate in Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, and Tianye Jia, Professor of Population Neuroscience, Fudan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Apps, D.I.Y., Lifestyle, Observation, Social Media, TikTok

The Whole “be real” thing is Hard if you spent years learning to be Professional First

Video March 13, 2022 Madison Santel

Who am I? I’m the person writing this.

But is it really necessary for you to know that I am female, love only cats (no dogs) and just got engaged?

No? Good, cause none of that is true. (Except the female part) That’s only one example of the odd twists that can come with the current trend of people going viral when they show “realness” and vulnerability.

Heard of acting? That’s what Meryl Streep does when she plays a person that never went to Yale and is not a rich famous actor, wink wink.

I suppose, as with so many online phenomena these days, it’s TikTok leading the way. No longer a place for young girls to dominate using only dancing, beauty and feminine wiles, it’s now a place where less objectively attractive people can blow up by showing, ostensibly, who they are.

Or by wearing a bear head as a hat.

https://www.tiktok.com/@madelin._.crochets/video/6983841654092352773

This trend towards realness has, based on informal research, also spilled over into places like LinkedIn, Medium and even Twitter.

On the whole, I think it’s a great thing. If Meryl Streep was only able to play herself, movies would be much less interesting, no doubt!

And maybe at least half of all the realness really is real. Just take it with a grain of salt if you see posts of someone getting engaged 3 times. In the same week.

All kidding aside this trend is part of a bigger, important evolution in digital communication

The evolution from journalistic norms, such as never referring to yourself directly but only as “your scribe”, “the writer”, “your correspondent” or just “one”, as in “one can only wonder…” to today’s norm of writing like the whole world wants to read your diary….

These journalistic conventions seem archaic and even ridiculous when the formerly forbidden “I” is commonplace and the authenticity of direct TikTok style casual presentation is already dominant and growing as a trend.

But the overall shift has more than just a style preference behind it, if you ask this writer (me).

It’s also far more than just the outgrowth of armies of non-journalists communicating spontaneously in every format and on every platform.

It’s really the early beginnings of what has become a common topic of late: the transition to the so-called Metaverse.

Not the Zuckerbergian Metaverse where people run around without legs and have joyless celebrations of themselves.

But rather, the real life cyber world where billions are on their phones communicating in various ways basically all the time. Even while jaywalking.

And as we do this more in every imaginable format, the desire to see “beautiful” landscape photos that have been photoshopped to death, instagram style, is eventually diminished to zero.

And what follows in a new hunger for the “real” or at least the honest seeming portrayal of the real (hi there Meryl!) and content that pushes an entirely different layer of psychological buttons.

As I mentioned above, dear reader, I love this! In spite of the fact that it leads to really scary TikToks (just check out the posts of some of the people that follow you on Tiktok (to see what I mean, the ones that follow 8753 people and get followed by like, 23 have nice videos…) where the frightening reality that’s out there (the banality of empirical unattractiveness you might call it) is already on full display, and how.

But that’s just the price to pay for a deeper and more authentic experience. And for the benefit of the real and valuable advice and knowledge you can get directly from “non-professional” actors who are not acting (presumably). We are reaping the profits of real life experiences, in exchange for nothing more than our attention, and clicks, likes and follows. And I say, Amen to that, bro.

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Climate Solutions, D.I.Y., Lifestyle, Observation

How to Implement small yet Meaningful Changes towards Zero Waste

October 28, 2021 Madison Santel

Cause and Effect of Convenience

We have all experienced how, in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it can be very challenging to break away from convenience. When it comes to products and services, many large companies utilize fast, cheap, and easily disposable single-use containers made from plastic.

Sodas bottles are plastic, baristas serve coffee in plastic cups with plastic caps and straws, fast food restaurants prepare orders in single use wrappers with plastic containers for condiments, and the list can go on and on. These products are used and then discarded.

Single use plastic items, as the name indicates, are used only once, yet plastic breaks down extremely slow, with some forms taking hundreds of years to degrade as shown in the tweet below from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF):

Plastic is designed to last, and that's why you may want to rethink using coffee pods. Here's why: https://t.co/qkujPm77gU pic.twitter.com/oegWoWPFCq
— WWF-Canada (@WWFCanada) July 6, 2018

Zero Waste Defined

Zero Waste as explained by Waste Management, is a philosophy that aims for resources to be reused, recycled or composted, in order to allow for very little to “zero” trash to be sent to landfills or spill into the ocean.

Clearly this issue is important, and getting more so, therefore should be considered a high priority – the reality is that huge amounts of plastic garbage does end up in the ocean and dumped in landfills. This dire state of affairs continues to jeopardize ocean and wildlife as well as our own health.

The organization Eco-Cycle Solutions urges the need for a complete change to our current system. With dwindling natural resources, a compromised ecosystem, and major changes in climate already evident today and with likely more on the way, there is no way the Earth can sustain for much longer and survive for future generations.

The obvious need for large-scale changes at the corporate level, regarding plastic usage, is clear, but we also need to ask ourselves: what can be done on an individual scale?

Small steps can lead to Big Change

Here are a few products that can be swapped-out and used instead of single and disposable use options:

Bamboo Toothbrush – both brush and bristles can be composted when time to replace
Lunchbox – making meals at home instead of eating out eliminates containers and can also be an opportunity to eat healthier
Water and Coffee Bottles (aluminum, glass or BPA free bottle) – can be refilled endlessly
Metal or Glass Straws – sturdier than the plastic counterpart and can be used over and over
Shopping Bags (canvas or other fabric) – can be used to carry groceries or any purchases
Cloth Napkins – for drying hands or wiping up around the house

“Using more sustainable products offers many benefits: saving money, eating healthier, all while creating a smaller ecological footprint in the world. While all are positive steps, most importantly, these small individual acts can ultimately help in the fight for the survival of future generations.”

Here’s a great little perspective on what we can do about it! pic.twitter.com/c4coggI247
— Greenpop (@Greenpop) November 10, 2018

While it may be impossible to free us of all waste, with effort and change, not necessarily perfection (decades of waste cannot be eliminated by a short term solution), small steps can lead to a better tomorrow.

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Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Science

Scientists, here’s how to use less plastic

October 28, 2021 Creative Commons

Meet the researchers making science more sustainable.

The lab is quietly bustling with scientists intent on their work. One gestures to an item on her bench – a yellow container, about the size of a novel. It’s almost full to the brim with used plastic pipette tips – the disposable attachments that stop pipettes being cross-contaminated. She stares down at it, despondently. “And this is just from today.”

We’re at the Francis Crick Institute, a towering biomedical research facility in the heart of London. The scientist in question is Marta Rodriguez Martinez, a Postdoctoral Training Fellow. Every day in her lab, pipette tips, petri dishes, bottles and more are used and discarded. The scale of the waste is immense – research by the University of Exeter estimates that labs worldwide generate 5.5 million tonnes of plastic waste each year.

Newsletter:

Alongside her research, Rodriguez Martinez doubles as a sustainability rep, tirelessly working to reduce the plastic waste her lab produces. The Crick’s sustainability team consult her about the unique behaviours of scientists. In return, she encourages colleagues to stop using unnecessary plastic and teaches them about sustainable alternatives.

It’s a difficult task, but one she feels passionate about. “We have in our heads that plastic is a one-use material, but it is not. Plastic can be autoclaved, it can be washed. Most plastics we use in the lab could be re-used as efficiently as glass.”

The Crick is taking behaviour change seriously. Alongside reps like Rodriguez Martinez, it offers sustainability workshops and waste training to employees. A pipette-tip audit is underway, which will show which products come with the lowest excess plastic. It’s also developing an interactive dashboard for teams to see how their waste compares to other labs’.

But behaviour change is only the beginning. Rodrigo Ponce-Ortuño oversees the Crick’s contract with an eco-friendly waste-management company. He points out that the journey of plastic lab equipment stretches far beyond its short service on the workbench.

Take media bottles – the plastic containers that hold nutrients to grow cells and bacteria. “It’s just glucose that goes into the bottles,” Ponce-Ortuño explains. The liquid is non-hazardous, but in his experience, recycling companies are wary of the scientific jargon on the labelling.

“If it just said sugar, it would be fine,” he says. Instead, many companies reject the waste because they don’t understand the chemistry. But, by using contractors with the right expertise, the Crick now sends all its media bottles for recycling.

For Rodriguez Martinez, this is a milestone. “I use maybe four media bottles a week, and there are 1,200 scientists here. That we can rinse them and have a contractor recycle them is a big success.”

This tactic – of building companies’ confidence in handling lab equipment – has led to other successes, too. Cooling gel packs, polystyrene boxes and the bulky pallets used to transport products are all collected for re-use. Boxes for pipette tips are also collected – after they’ve been stacked and re-used in the labs themselves.

In fact, the Crick’s labs send no waste at all to landfill. Hazardous waste is safely incinerated, but anything else that can’t be recycled goes through a process called energy-from-waste, where electricity, heat or fuel is harvested from the material as it’s disposed of.

And they’re just as keen to reduce the amount of plastic coming in. The institute recently held a green procurement fair, where suppliers had to meet a set of sustainability criteria to attend. “Normally when you buy a product, you look at the quality and the price,” says Rodriguez Martinez. “We want to add sustainability to that equation.”

The team know that change won’t happen overnight. They need to win people over with practical measures to reduce plastics – without reducing the quality of science. So the institute is discussing best practice with other laboratories, to grow the movement for low-plastic research.

“We’re trying to educate people into a more sustainable science,” says Rodriguez Martinez.

Wellcome, which publishes Mosaic, is one of the six founding partners of the Francis Crick Institute.

“We’re trying to educate people into a more sustainable science,” says Rodriguez Martinez.

Wellcome, which publishes Mosaic, is one of the six founding partners of the Francis Crick Institute.

This article first appeared on Mosaic and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY 4.0).

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Books, Climate Solutions, Observation

In ‘Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities’ a big future challenge is met Head On

May 18, 2021 Wiley Simms

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Johns Hopkins University Press

There’s a massive migration coming as the physical and political landscape changes

A gradual, subtle, yet immensely important shift is underway across the planet. That shift is the change in thinking that will be required to accompany the changes that we now know, for a fact, are coming. Global warming, sea level rise, mass decentralization and migration and many more macro trends that are no longer in doubt but will be a reality to cope with.

Taking the positive approach to this – searching for solutions to the many huge geopolitical and technological issues that we face, is a trend that must come to the front and center of our dialog about the future.

Above: ‘Climatopolis‘ a prior work from author E. Kahn

Although, it is a book more thought of as a guide for city planners and other professionals, Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities is fascinating evidence of where these forced changes could lead, and what potentials can be unlocked by the opportunities that will inevitably arise from the extreme, changing circumstances.

A great step in the right direction, we’ve provided a look at Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities, by Matthew E. Kahn and Mac McComas, below, along with a description, provided courtesy of the Bookshop (and the publisher), along with some links for a variety of options where to purchase.

Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial

The urban centers of New York City, Seattle, and San Francisco have enjoyed tremendous economic success and population growth in recent years. At the same time, cities like Baltimore and Detroit have experienced population loss and economic decline. People living in these cities are not enjoying the American Dream of upward mobility.

How can post-industrial cities struggling with crime, pollution, poverty, and economic decline make a comeback? In Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities, Matthew E. Kahn and Mac McComas explore why some people and places thrive during a time of growing economic inequality and polarization–and some don’t.

They examine six underperforming cities–Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis–that have struggled from 1970 to present. Drawing from the field of urban economics, Kahn and McComas ask how the public and private sectors can craft policies and make investments that create safe, green cities where young people reach their full potential. The authors analyze long-run economic and demographic trends.

They also highlight recent lessons from urban economics in labor market demand and supply, neighborhood quality of life, and local governance while scrutinizing strategies to lift people out of poverty. These cities are all at a fork in the road.

Depending on choices made today, they could enjoy a significant comeback–but only if local leaders are open to experimentation and innovation while being honest about failure and constructive evaluation.

Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities provides a roadmap for how urban policy makers, community members, and practitioners in the public and private sector can work together with researchers to discover how all cities can solve the most pressing modern urban challenges.

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Books, Esoteric, Science, UFOs

Truths about Extraterrestrial Life and the Mysteries of Interplanetary Visitors

December 10, 2020 Wiley Simms

A gradual shift is happening; toward a lack of disbelief regarding interplanetary visitors

With all the recent stories about UFO’s and Aliens in the media these days, there’s a feeling in the air that it’s not as far fetched as many once believed that they could be present in our world or at least in contact in some form. Israel’s Professor Haim Eshed’s recent interviews as well as various US based witnesses have begun to put forth the simple yet compelling idea that Aliens have been known of by governments, and others, for decades, and have held off on divulging what they know while they wait for the right moment. When the public is “ready”. Interestingly, there is also the sense in the air that the “right time” might be coming soon.

Maybe it’s partially due to having had a President that has “unusual” ideas about medicine and windmills and various other topics. Why not just let the people know everything the government is hiding? Or maybe it really is something that can no longer be kept from the public for other reasons.

These books can shed light on deeply considered questions and theories for those that want to know what’s out there, ahead of any forthcoming announcements.

Beyond Area 51: The Mysteries of the Planet’s Most Forbidden, Top Secret Destinations

Click here to see “Beyond Area 51”
and help bookstores.
Also available on Amazon.

The truth can’t be hidden forever. Unlock the secrets of Earth’s top secret destinations–including Area 51 and more.

Few have ventured into the many heavily guarded, top-secret locations scattered across the earth. Even fewer have emerged with stories to tell. Yet every now and then the common man is given an illicit glimpse of something extraordinary…

In Beyond Area 51, Mack Maloney explores the truths behind the many myths and legends surrounding some of the world’s most mysterious locales. From the Homestead Air Force base in Miami, Florida to Russia’s Kapustin Yar, Maloney investigates incredible reports of extraterrestrial experimentation on animals, UFOs with road rage, and other unbelievable tales beyond our wildest imaginings. Filled with fascinating, true accounts, Beyond Area 51 will convince any skeptic of the infinite possibilities of what exists on, and beyond, our tiny planet. Click here to see “Beyond Area 51” and help indepe

The Stargate Conspiracy: The Truth about Extraterrestrial Life and the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt

Click here to see “Stargate Conspiracy”
and help independent bookstores.
Also available on Amazon.

In recent years, alternative historians have gained remarkable insight into the mysteries of ancient Egypt–but according to Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, their discoveries tie into a dangerous conspiracy nearly fifty years in the making

.At the center of this conspiracy is a group of respected, powerful individuals who believe that the ancient Egyptian gods are really extraterrestrials who will soon return to earth. The conspirators have intimate and exclusive knowledge of this momentous second coming–but they insist on keeping it to themselves. What could be the purpose of such a conspiracy? Why are the conspirators so desperate to keep their information a secret? And what does it mean for mankind? In this riveting, well-researched book, Picknett and Price offer compelling evidence that the conspiracy exists–and expose the insidious motivations of the individuals and organizations behind it….Click here to see “Stargate Conspiracy” and help independent bookstores. Also available on Amazon.

The Source Field Investigations: The Hidden Science and Lost Civilizations Behind the 2012 Prophecies

Click here to see “Source Field Investigations”
and help independent bookstores.
Also available on Amazon.

Prepare yourself for a revealing tour through the most incredible scientific mysteries of the world with your guide David Wilcock, the New York Timesbestselling author of Awakening in the Dream.More than two million people have seen David Wilcock’s incredible tour of the 2012 prophecies in his Internet documentary, The 2012 Enigma.

Now, he expands his vision with a cutting-edge investigation into alternative sciences with deep insights into what is coming in our immediate future. A stunning synthesis of hidden science and lost prophecies, The Source Field Investigations exposes DNA transformation, wormholes, ancient conspiracies, the Maya calendar, and a new model of galactic energy fields triggering mental, biological, and spiritual evolution. Unlike the apocalyptic viewpoints depicted in big-budget disaster films, Wilcock believes that 2012 will be a watermark for widespread acceptance of a greater reality–and here, he lays out the blueprints for such a Golden Age. Click here to see “Source Field Investigations” and help independent bookstores. Also available on Amazon

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Transportation has been the focus, due to Tesla’s rise, but houses and commercial buildings are next

Another underdog – Passive House is ready for the next wave of climate conscious changes

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The Greenest Home

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Who am I? I’m the person writing this.

All kidding aside this trend is part of a bigger, important evolution in digital communication

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A gradual shift is happening; toward a lack of disbelief regarding interplanetary visitors

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News: Climate Solutions, AI, Books, Entertainment and more